I started this blog over a year ago because the practice of running was such a sensory experience for me I wanted to capture what was happening and share it. At first I put down all my running sessions in a loose sort of log, and tried to write down the thoughts that opened up in me as I learned to run longer distances, live with the elements. I found running to be spiritually nurturing. I definitely had to call upon God when I ran, and remember that it was through God that I could do anything. My blogs became more general and opened up to other experiences, particularly spiritual ones.

When I finally let go of the goal of running in the marathon in 2011, due to injury, and lack of time to train. I got up to 16 miles in a long run, but my goal of 20 miles the next long run ended after 10 painful miles with a heel spur. I found I could no longer blog perhaps because my blog was so wrapped in my marathon aspiration. I did share my entry about my mentor, but it had led people this site who could learn my identity, and some of the most private things I shared about my relationship. This scared me from blogging further, and I removed my triumphant post about Grete’s Great Gallop 1/2 marathon, because it would have definitely revealed me.

I don’t know if this is a goodby to this blog, as I write all this, or a reaffimation to continue. I did not do a ‘post a day’ or even a week. I am so thankful to this blog, and I am thankful that I am still running, although very short distances now. It is a season for me of letting go, of slowing down. I have a few days off, I hope to come back to my relationship with this blog and myself. I thank my subscribers and wish them joy in this New Year.

One of the last conversations I had with Tom took place in the doorway of the Office of Academic Affairs, where I have been working for a few years, having been a full time faculty member in the Speech and Theatre Department before that. Tom asked if he could schedule me for the Monday evening acting class which runs each fall. I told him I couldn’t do it again—I was so busy, and I found that it felt harder and harder to teach each year. He told me that it was very important that I continue to teach, that it was crucial that I continue to know the students of our college through the classroom to best inform me as an administrator. I was persuaded by his conviction, or perhaps, I just didn’t want to disagree in front of Carol and Margot who were standing there, and just didn’t want to argue, and I am so thankful that I didn’t, as this semester has been a very healing one for me. My students are so extraordinary this semester, and I am learning so much from them. Tom was always looking out for me, never ceased mentoring me, and always guided me in the right direction.

A number of years ago, I taught a speech class in which I gave the students a self-inventory exercise designed to provoke them to create speeches came out of their most deeply felt experiences. One of the inventory questions was about mentors, and a student named Patrick began writing about Tom Smith in the inventory, developing the exercise into an essay. Tom had discovered that Patrick intended to be a film maker, and took a great interest in him, spent time with him researching transfer opportunities with him, and connected him to more advanced students. Patrick in about paragraph 3 of his essay said something like “Dr. Smith is a noble man.”

This stopped me.

For one, in that I found the use of the word ‘noble’ when speaking about anyone,

unusual.

And then, because I realized that I had to agree.

Tom was noble.

When I shared the essay with Tom, I pointed the sentence out to him. I waited for the inevitable sardonic reply for which Tom was so well known. But he too stopped, and took it in and said something like “this makes it all worthwhile. This is why I will never leave the classroom.” “There’s no word in the language I revere more than ‘teacher.” Pat Conroy in Prince of Tides wrote, “My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher, and it always has. I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher.” Thank you, Dr.Smith, for honoring us here for a little while.

I turned 49 today. I didn’t plan anything special with anyone, and am actually taking a business trip later in the day, but I still feel happy–to be alive I guess, I am so lucky to have the family and loved ones that I do, a job that is very meaningful and pays my bills. Despite night sweats, some new wrinkles and occasional twinges of sadness that I never had kids, I am deliriously happy, and am so gifted by God.

On Saturday I plan to run in the NY Road Runner’s Grete’s race, named for Grete Waitz, who won 9 NYC marathons, and was a quiet humanitarian as well, who passed away this year from cancer at age 57. It is a half-marathon, and I think my many Sundays and week nights running on Fire Island have trained me well enough to finish. But more importantly the training has made me more comfortable in my skin than I have ever been, more aware of my own potential and given me many moments of awe, as in the moment when a deer licked my hand and let me pet her, while her fawn gazed at me with the darkest eyes I have ever seen.

I am living in my father’s house, and sleep in the bedroom he shared with my mother, who passed away in 2006. She left a beautiful large stained glass piece on the wall of the bedroom. It quotes the Book of Ruth–“Where you go, I go, and your God will be my God.” I looked at it this morning, and wondered what it had meant to her–I know she was a very spiritual person and both she and my father were united in their faithfulness to the Roman Catholic Church. She didn’t convert to be with my father, they always shared the same God.

Last night, I returned to Christ Tabernacle after a long hiatus. The worship was so strong and powerful last night, it was incredible, because the music ministry is beautiful there, but last night, there was hardly any singing, mostly just the church’s body praising. One song that did refrain was “Show Me Your Glory” but Pastor Maria Durso’s voice soared above, declaring “Look on your right, look on your left, look to the front, look to the back–that is My glory saith the Lord.” I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit as clearly as the clothes on my back.

I think the Book of Ruth quote suddenly spoke to me this morning (after all, I have been sleeping in that room for 6 months now and never paid attention before) because I have to learn that accepting God is not something to reason through or to rationalize or to overthink. Ruth accepted her mother-in-law’s God and she became faithful. I am sometimes too much of a thinker, too logical and don’t allow myself to just see God’s glory enough. I have a lot of work to do. May I become more like Ruth.

Queensborough Community College is attempting to document 2,011 volunteers who perform an act of service between now and 9/11 in tribute to the heroes and the fallen of 9/11/01. It is participating in the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance tradition that began in 2002.

Your act of service will keep on giving, providing an opportunity for financial support to Queensborough’s Service Learning Initiative on campus, providing authentic civic engagement experiences to students, while providing real service to the community of Queens, NY.